Rhonna Robbins-Sponaas

While the world has grown significantly smaller with the development of technology over the past few decades and the fiber arts community has become increasingly globalized, spinning is still as much a local activity as ever. Spinners gather to share their experiences, their stories, their techniques, and their lives. And they are all unique, with their unique heritages.
Norwegian fiber arts are in a state of flux. Their roots are ancient, but spinning has been in hibernation and invisible until recently. Slowly, a community is developing, and interest in the old breeds is returning. Spinners are prompting that change, and while change is happening slowly, there has been surprising progress in the past few years–and we’re just getting started.

Rhonna Robbins-Sponaas (aka Trenchwork) is a writer, educator, and fiber enabler, a Southern gal living in a northern land where frozen lakes creak in winter and chocolate chips are semi-precious valuables hauled in suitcases across the ocean. She is entirely hooked on fiber and spinning, convinced that the craft has provided no small degree of therapy (and sanity) since she began, and cheerfully shares what she knows–or doesn’t know–with other fiber addicts on both sides of the pond. She is responsible for Trønderrokk, the only established spinning guild in the district, a group which is now 9 years old and sponsors a national gathering each spring.